2171 Senator
Lees: To ask the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and
Indigenous Affairs—

(1) Will the Minister act on unanimous advice from a range of health
and social welfare agencies, including the Royal Australasian College
of Physicians (RACP), Paediatrics and Child Health Division; the Royal
Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, Faculty of Child
and Adolescent Psychiatry; and the Professional Alliance for the Health
of Asylum Seekers and their Children that ‘prolonged detention is
causing harm to the mental health and development of children and adolescents’
and that the Minister should ‘undertake an independent, expert review’
into the mental health of children held in detention in Australia’s
immigration detention centres.

(2) Will the Minister take any further action to examine and evaluate
the performance of Australasian Correctional Management (ACM), with
regard to the mental health and welfare of children in detention; if
so, what action will the Minister take; if not, under what conditions
would the Minister be prepared to conduct such an evaluation of ACM’s
performance.

(3) With reference to the Minister’s response to the May 2003 Four Corners program on the former Woomera Detention Centre,
that ‘there is no contractual requirement for ACM to provide staffing
numbers to DIMIA’ for the achievement of contracted outcomes by ACM:
Given this lack of detailed accountability by ACM and the consistent
reporting by social welfare and medical practitioners about the institutional
barriers to the mental health and wellbeing of detainees: What steps
is the Minister currently taking to ensure that ACM is now upholding
Australian immigration detention standards.